The present disclosure relates to data networking in general and to optimizing network traffic in particular.
Data communications networks, such as local area networks (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs) often include a variety of network devices for sending, receiving, directing, and optimizing network data traffic. A WAN optimization device is a type of network device that can improve network performance in reading and/or writing data over a WAN. WAN optimization devices often operate in pairs on both sides of a WAN to de-duplicate, compress, prefetch, cache, and otherwise optimize network traffic. For example, a WAN optimization device may intercept network traffic from a server before it reaches the WAN; compress this network traffic; and communicate this compressed network traffic over the WAN to a second WAN optimization application or device near or within a client device. The second WAN optimization application or device then decompresses or otherwise processes the compressed network traffic to reconstruct the original network traffic and forward it, if necessary, to the destination client device.
WAN optimization devices are referred to in the art by many different terms, including, but not limited to, transaction accelerators, WAN optimizers, WAN optimization controllers (WOCs), wide-area data services (WDS) appliances, WAN traffic optimizers (WTOs), and protocol accelerators or optimizers. Additionally, techniques for optimizing network traffic to improve network performance in reading and/or writing data over a network are referred to in the art by many different terms, including, but not limited to, WAN acceleration, transaction acceleration, transaction pipelining, protocol pipelining, request prediction, application flow acceleration, and protocol acceleration. In this disclosure, the term “WAN optimization device” is used to refer to such devices and applications and “WAN optimization” is used to refer to such techniques.
Application development is shifting to a new approach that leverages recent advances in web-based technologies and mobile devices. There is an unmet need to optimize network traffic for applications that are developed using this new approach.